Nuclear power is counterproductive to efforts to address climate change effectively and in time. Funding diverted to new nuclear power plants deprives real climate change solutions like solar, wind and geothermal energy of essential resources.

The rapidly intensifying storm will hammer areas from north Florida to Maine with ice and snow and could resemble a winter hurricane in places by Thursday. Some blizzard warnings have already been issued and more could come. (emphasis added)

This harkens backto the White Hurricane of 1913, a most severe winter blizzard responsible for the largest loss of life on the Great Lakes in history.Some of the worst took place in Goderich, Ontario, Canada, on the shoreline of Lake Huron. Horrifically, a 40-foot tsunami like wave crashed into the port and town, drowning many.

It just so happens that Goderich is not far down the road from Kincardine, "home" to the largest nuclear power plant in the world, Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, with a total of nine reactors (one permanently shutdown prototype, and eight still operable reactors) on the Lake Huron shore.

Bruce is also targeted for the permanent burial dump for all of Ontario's "low" and "intermediate" level radioactive wastes, from a total of 20 reactors. The most reactors in any U.S. state, by comparison, was IL, with 14. Three of those have since permanently shut down, taking IL's current number of reactors down to 11 operating.The Ontario Power Generation DGR (short for Deep Geologic Repository) would be just over a half-mile from the water's edge.

At 2013-2014 Joint Review Panel proceedings on the OPG DGR license application, Beyond Nuclear's Kevin Kamps orally testified that the DUD (short for Deep Underground Dump) would be at risk of such tsunami-like waves coming in off of Lake Huron, inundating the burial dump, leading to potentially catastrophic releases of hazardous radioactivity into the drinking water supply for tens of millions of people downstream.

But such blizzard ("hurricane")-generated waves are just one natural disaster scenario at the site.

There is also the risk of seiches, which are wind-blown flooding events along the Great Lakes shores.

But there are also Great Lakes/fresh water tsunamis on these inland seas.

which mention nuclear power plants, and the radioactive wastes stored there, as in dry casks, as of particular concern. Thus, it's not just OPG's DUD that would be at risk. So too are atomic reactors, and on-site radioactive waste storage.

By the way, as shown on the map (in the upper right hand corner), Goderich itself was under consideration for Canada's high-level nuclear waste (irradiated nuclear fuel) DGR/DUD, as well. Since 2013, however, it has been removed from the target list. However, two municipalities near Bruce in Kincardine are still under consideration. So are other sites within the Great Lakes basin, including on its shorelines. This DGR/DUD would be for high-level radioactive waste/irradiated nuclear fuel from all 22 atomic reactors across Canada, not only in Ontario, but also in Quebec and New Brunswick. Such a DGR/DUD would also be vulnerable to natural disasters and worsening extreme weather events, if located on the Great Lakes shores.

Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness):

Leave it to Japan to promote the produce from the Fukushima region by serving it to the Organizing Committee of both the Olympics and Paralympics, and planning to serve nothing but Fukushima-area food to the athletes in 2020. No testing for radiation contamination, just a PR blitz to convince everyone that there ain’t nothing wrong with food grown in a radiation contamination area.

The Trump administration, which has decided to make the United States the only country in the world to not subscribe to the Paris Climate Agreement, met with fierce and impassioned resistance at the UN Council of Parties (COP23) climate gathering in Bonn, Germany.

As Democracy Now! reports:

Democracy Now! was there when activists and Democratic lawmakers at the U.N. climate summit in Bonn, Germany, staged a full-fledged revolt Monday when the Trump administration made its official debut at this year’s conference with a forum pushing coal, gas and nuclear power. The presentation was entitled “The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation.” The panel was the only official appearance by the U.S. delegation during this year’s U.N. climate summit. Of the four corporate representatives pushing nuclear, gas and coal, Lenka Kollar of NuScale Power and Amos Hochstein of Tellurian told Amy Goodman that they disagreed with Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the climate agreement.

"Every single other country in the world is moving forward together to tackle the climate crisis, while Donald Trump has isolated the United States on the world stage in an embarrassing and dangerous position." As reported by CommonDreams.

Host Harvey Wasserman had Beyond Nuclear's Paul Gunter and Kevin Kamps, as well as "Nuclear Hotseat" podcast host Libbe HaLevy, on his radio program, "Solartopia Green Power and Wellness Hour." They discussed NUKE POWER & NATURAL DISASTERS, which has become intensely important in the wake of HURRICANES HARVEY & IRMA. The terrifying realities of the hurricanes that swept through Texas and Florida have made it clear there is no way to evacuate from massive radiation releases during a meltdown in the midst of a major storm. We faced this problem during Hurricane Andrew in the early 1990s and were in grave danger again during these last two giant hurricanes. And that's just the least of it...between earthquakes, flooding, tsunamis, tornadoes and more, our rickety, dying reactors are at greater risk than ever. If you are at all concerned with the fate of the Earth, don't miss this extremely crucial, uniquely-informed discussion with three truly extraordinary experts. Listen to the hour-long interview, here. Wasserman just wrote an article based on the interview, published by The Progressive.